


The Age We Were Back Then

by slightlyjillian



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drabble Collection, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-25
Updated: 2011-04-25
Packaged: 2017-10-18 16:25:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/190866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slightlyjillian/pseuds/slightlyjillian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of 20 drabbles in which Zechs finds an unexpected appreciation for his best friend's daughter, Nichol endures an unwelcome confession during the coup against the Alliance, and Dorothy learns to keep a secret. Among other things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by the following meme:
> 
> 1\. _Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like._  
>  2\. _Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle._  
>  3\. _Write a drabble related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it’s over. No lingering afterwards!_  
>  4\. _Do ten of these, then post them._

**1\. Trowa + Walker / Flogging Molly “Another Bag of Bricks” 4:04**

Sometimes the job took Trowa to places where he didn’t really want to be. Orders were for places too hot. Places too cold. They had insufficient cover for HeavyArms or the overrun landscape was completely unfriendly to mobile suit transport. Fortunately, Corsica was full of tourists and new faces and nervous newly promoted officers letting more slip than they could catch.

“Next, roll it forward please.” The uniformed soldier waved his arm a few times before Trowa responded. He didn’t have any ammunition in this truck. He just wanted to scout the area with the small window of opportunity that presented itself. Somehow, he felt more nervous when he had no chance of being caught. Nothing. Nothing would make this person suspect.

“Your first time here?” The man smiled into the window and checked Trowa’s documents. “A journalist! I used to read this paper. It’s kind of edgy. Make us sound good when the Specials do our formation flights.”

Trowa murmured syllables which weren’t words but the man nodded as if he understood.

“If you need anything during your stay, just ask for Walker. That’s me.”

But Trowa drove on.

 

 **2\. Relena + Sally / Jars of Clay ‘O Come and Mourn With Me Awhile’ 4:05**

“I’m thinking about buying a new house,” Relena said casually when her drink went low and the ice clicked as it melted.

“Any particular reason?” The look Sally gave was too kind, too gentle and far too understanding. Why did she ask questions if she already knew the answer?

“Why don’t you tell me, Doctor Po?” Relena rested her head against the couch, stretching her neck and shoulders comfortably. “Analyze my need to hide away when so much of me craves the cameras and the well-spun answer to the political questions.”

“So you’re buying this house as a secret?” Sally’s laughter was bright and unexpected. Relena’s lips turned up at the corner but she closed her eyes away from what had to be Sally’s satisfied expression.

“A woman has to have a secret or two.” Letting out a long breath, Relena did glance over at her companion. “But I’ll probably make sure someone has a spare key. Just in case, well. You know.”

 **3\. Iria + Treize / Lykke Li ‘Breaking It Up’ 3:39**

He went to several parties. Most of them were full of investors, so his smile and speech and the occasional dance met their expectations. He spilled his efforts across the altar to the greater cause, but it was never personal. No matter how much the Lady wanted to make things emotional.

This smile that met him across the ballroom floor was bashful. Her blonde hair was cut short and curled like new flower-petals. He waited the whole evening but she never approached him.

A month later it was the same. Her blue eyes met his and then slid away. Something different stirred in his heart. Something unexpectedly dangerous. Again and again. Finally he asked after her.

“Iria Winner? She’s finishing her medical degree and plans on going back to space to be with her father, I think you’ve heard of them.”

“Yes,” he said simply. The next party, she was not there.

 **4\. Une + Nichol / Keane ‘Leaving So Soon’ 3:59**

The appealing blue line of the ocean blurred into the sky. Nichol watched it as he jogged along the boardwalk. Certain stretches were more crowded than others, but the thoughts running through his mind were as isolated as always.

“Nichol, come in. Where are you?” His ever present pager began whistling for attention at the exact same moment.

“I’m on break,” he huffed, squeezing sideways to avoid a woman, her small dog and large floppy hat.

“You’re on what? Get back here. The ambassador and her escort are in the hall. I don’t have time for them, so we’re putting them on your schedule.”

He grinned, part of a well-practiced and unhappy feeling. “Sure, Une. Tell them I’ll be there in five minutes.” He switched off the device. Making quite sure it was dark.

“Or five hours.”

 **5\. Dorothy + Nichol / Fringe OST ‘A Destroyed Life’ 3.24**

In a momentary confusion, he thought the light came from the sunrise. His alarm missed, his body over-warm and tangled in the bedsheets. But the next thought told him this was sunset. He didn’t know where the knowledge came from except that it surfaced from the grey haze of broken sleep. Next came the sight of a room not his own. And the stirred movement of a body not his.

His gut twisted and it felt like too much air left his lungs all at once. What had he done? Could it be undone?

She was silent until turning to find him watching she asked, “Are you okay? Because I’m okay.”

His answer stayed in a clutched throat.

 **6\. Walker + Heero / Doll and the Kicks ‘You Turn Up’ 2:59**

“Watch this,” the assassin said. “This is how I save a life.” He wore no mask, his eyes were unreadable and his expression quite beyond understanding. He might as well have been wearing a mask.

Walker made a sound. He wasn’t certain himself if it was consent or dismay as the tape and ropes the assassin had used left him immobilized. Then he went still when he heard another scratching at the front lock. The newest intruded had it partially open.

Why would an assassin close and lock a door behind him, then wait?

The light from the hall revealed a second figure. This one masked and in all black. The first stranger moved quick and knocked the gun out of his hand.

“Ah, Heero!” the second man gasped. “How did you get here already?”

 **7\. Hilde + Nichol / Carpark North ‘The Last End’ 6:25**

“You missed filling out the second page,” Nichol said, dropping the incomplete application in front of the new colony recruit. Then he took the next application to the person directly behind him. “And I’m not going to believe this is your real name. Try again. The rest of you are dismissed. Wait for a follow up call. We’ll tell you where and when the trials are going to be held.”

“Excuse me, sir. Hilde is my name.” The girl raised her hand as if she were in a classroom. Nichol sighed heavily. She looked about old enough to be elementary school, but all the still-innocent ones were looking younger and younger.

“Yes, but Hilde Graves was a famous actress from fifty years ago,” he replied holding her gaze until she let her eyes betray the lie.

“So you watch films too?”

“In my free time,” he smirked. “And that was in a past life. How about your real name this time?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But you can leave the age the same,” he added, his voice dropping a little lower. A few of the other applicants still lingered in the doorway as if they wanted to ask him more questions.

“Yes, sir!” she grinned with far more enthusiasm than the situation warranted.

“Don’t make me regret this,” Nichol warned.

 **8\. Wufei + Sally / Mika ‘Dr. John’ 3.43**

“How many times are you going to try breaking this arm before you accept the fact that you will never beat Heero on that motorcycle course?” Sally frowned at her patient. Gundam pilots never quite lost their competitive edge, it just shifted to new thrills. But none of them seemed to quite find a reckless activity that satisfied them enough.

“Trowa bested him on a first try,” Wufei answered as if that explained everything. He absently read a sign posted on the wall. Sally glanced over to note which one.

“How’s your eyesight?” She kept her tone casual. But she saw the fingers twitch from the end of the sling. “I can get you a referral.”

He hissed and jumped down from the table. “See you later.”

Sally laughed, “Maybe you will. Maybe you won’t.”

 **9\. Une + Relena / Muse ‘Hate This & I’ll Love You’ 5:09**

Do you ever really forget the person who killed your father? Do you ever really forget that you failed to kill that person? In the still quiet of her room, Relena often dreamed about the boy on the beach. But gradually, the face she saw on the beach became someone else. A woman, feigning her injuries with a gun hidden just under her breast.

“Go ahead, kill me,” Relena would shout as the sunset reflected from the still clean edges of the weapon. Sand drifted free, falling from the breeze.

“Kill you?” Lady Une would answer. Suddenly she would be wearing a dress and reaching out to pull a rose away from Relena’s hair. “Ah, yes. That means something different when you say it, isn’t that right?” Une smiled in the dream. Her eyes quick and not missing anything. Even Relena’s racing pulse and how the girl could not breathe.

“The rose does suit you,” Une would say. Close too close.

Relena kicked off her sheet, eyes opening moments later to the grey shadows of her room. Moonlight coming in from the window. The Sank Kingdom. Even here, she was not safe from her own imagination.

 **10\. Quatre + Trowa / Gordon Lightfoot ‘Did She Mention My Name’ 2:29**

They kept up a tradition of reunions. Every year, around the holiday of the war but exactly two weekends later, Quatre reserved a table and they swapped stories and drank extravagant amounts of alcohol to light their cheeks with happier feelings amid honoring the sad.

Trowa talked about the Preventers. How Nichol still irritated everyone but got the job done. How Une never received exactly what she wanted, but the Preventers did better for her efforts.

Quatre asked about Catherine and the children who called Trowa ‘uncle.’

Then reminding them both that the evening was gone, came the quiet of absent Dorothy. It had somehow become tomorrow without the staff urging them to leave.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I challenged myself to write every random mish-mash in this set as romantic(ish). Ouch. :)

**1\. Mueller + Quatre / Ennio Morricone ‘From American Sex Appeal’ 3:28**

Quatre opened the door before the visitor could disturb anyone else in the house. “Mueller, I told you to stop. My sisters think you’re weird enough as it is but why are you bringing me...” he swallowed a laugh. “Flowers. You’re bringing me _flowers_ before seven in the morning? On a Sunday?”

“They made me think of you,” Mueller admitted, but without a better answer his dark cheeks turned plum-colored.

“Go back to wherever you came from,” Quatre said, but all wrath fizzled under Mueller’s astonishing effort toward attempting cultural courtship. “And take those... whatever they are with you. What are they?”

Mueller shoved the bouquet forward with an assault of over-perfumed packaging.

“Alright, I’ll take them. But go!” Quatre smacked his lips. He could taste the smell now. “Go! By Allah, leave!”

 **2\. Cathy + Hilde / Chris Cornell ‘Getaway Car’ 4:59** ([Alt. Road Rage](http://archiveofourown.org/series/2226))

Both women were standing in the foyer of the Road Rage when they first noticed each other. “Who are you here...” “Do you know one of the cast?” They both chuckled at the overlap.

Catherine tilted her head to take in the dark spikes of hair and the ample use of metal piercings. “Nice look. Wait, I really mean that. Normally, I wouldn’t be impressed, but you... you put some thought into this. Am I right? The number on your ears?”

“Yeah,” Hilde lifted her fingers but did not quite touch. Something else did make contact and Catherine laughed nervously.

“I’m Catherine. I’m here, to see my girlfriend...” she admitted. “They might be a while. Do you want to get a drink? They all usually end up across the way...”

“Yeah,” Hilde said again, her eyes brighter. “Have I seen you before? I’ve gone to a few parties. I’m kind of... well, I know a few of the cast. Mostly Heero.”

“Oh, you’re Heero’s Hilde!”

“That many Hildes?” The dark-haired girl’s fingers trembled slightly against her chin, dancing along her lip and the piercing there. “No, I guess not. Ha ha.”

“Yeah, a drink sounds good.” Catherine tried not to think long on the new emotion. Not again. She could be so fickle sometimes.

 **3\. Dorothy + Une / Scala and Kolacny Brothers ‘Mutter’ 3:59**

The relationship was rather ill-advised, but for all of the initial gossip and opinions Dorothy still found herself in Une’s bed and her life and part of the other woman’s sorrow. What Une couldn’t carry with her around the Preventer offices and hallways, she gave to Dorothy to keep.

Dorothy had always wanted to support someone, but she hadn’t expected the method of holding secrets. Before it had been in battle or from sheer devotion. But Une asked Dorothy to keep her lips pressed together and her thoughts hemmed in tight and deep. They only opened them on evenings when Une’s heart seemed ready to burst if truths weren’t acknowledged.

“Tell me the names again,” Une whispered. And Dorothy would recite them from memory, as if the soldiers and Preventers killed in the line of duty were her own blood, brothers and sisters. No matter how long the list grew, she never forgot a name.

Then she used the same lips to heal the reopened wounds.

 **4\. Hilde + Walker / Davotchka ‘Strizzalo’ 1:30**

He bought her cotton candy before winning the ring toss so that her fingers were sticky against the coarse pink fur of the toy bear. “Walker, we can’t take this home with us.”

“Okay, we can give it to Emily.” Walker’s expression went soft with the thought of their three year-old, surviving in Duo Maxwell’s care.

“Right.” Hilde threw it away secretly.

 **5\. Treize + Trowa / Last AmAndA ‘Final Echo’ 3:31** ([Alt. Numbers Universe](http://archiveofourown.org/series/2161))

Thirteen recruited Three largely without the boy’s knowledge. But eventually even a lunatic mobster wants to know where he came from, how he was born. What Treize had never expected was the sudden out-pouring of affection.

They met for the first time on the thirteenth floor of the office building, the large open office that let the sunlight in and hid nothing in the shadows. The boy, Three, somehow had grown taller. His eyes were sharp and found his way around the desk to the chair. He leaned both arms on either side of Treize’s head.

“I love you,” Trowa said, only inches away but making no further move. “I would do anything for you.”

“I see,” Treize replied, more coolly than he might have chosen except he had been affected. He shoved aside the ideas and thoughts and images of what came next. “Clearly, I should never have left you without a partner.”

“Who’s to say _you_ don’t need one,” Trowa countered.

 **6\. Relena + Sylvia / Dears ‘Postcard from Purgatory’ 7:57**

The record finished playing with a scratch leaving the room in sudden quiet. But the woman was not done, so she continued to write out the letter. She hesitated only slightly before working the pen to create more words. Somehow seeking to communicate a change that she had not anticipated.

“What is it with women in your family and sending letters?” Relena asked, sleepily. Sylvia kept writing, but saw in her memories Relena delicate and soft in the middle of that very large bed. The luxurious feeling of the expensive bedding was not unlike the silk nightgown Sylvia had pulled on when she started her letter at the desk.

“I feel like I owe him an apology,” Sylvia said. “Just let me do this.”

“And you’ll expect me to deliver it I suppose?” Relena did not sound harsh or upset. Merely expectant. Quite like the same tone she used to confess that the attentions she gave to Sylvia were not to be misunderstood.

“He will see you again,” Sylvia said, her fingers still working on the page. Filled. She turned it over and continued mid-sentence. “I have not seen him since we were children. And that day in the graveyard.”

“Why do you think we need to explain anything?” Relena asked. This time she had wonder in her words. That was the sound which made Sylvia smile a little. It held a promise that the former Queen was not so tired as Sylvia thought. The evening was young. The letter was almost complete.

“I want him to understand that he should not blame me for taking you, but if he does...” Sylvia turned her head and saw that Relena had sat up. A rather imposing image of authority even softened in her state of half-undress. Like a flute playing under a forceful percussion. “If he does blame me, then I say we are even on all accounts.”

“He likes you,” Relena shrugged. She beckoned gently. “Heero won’t care--except to think your letter is... well, he’ll probably laugh.”

 **7\. Nichol + Trant / Inception OST ‘Mombassa’ 4:54**

The rain struck the metal roof of the truck like rapid fire, but Nichol was more distressed by the gloomy atmosphere inside the dark, confined space. He and Trant had hidden their squadron inside while the cargo was being pulled deep into Alliance territory.

 _Us. Them,_ he thought. _I’m already separating. Identifying myself with Treize._

But the risk of overthrowing the current military was nothing compared to the risk that Trant had just opened.

“Why did you have to say something now?” Nichol grumbled. They weren’t in private. At the very least, the two Specials officers next to them had heard the confession--if not the whole group. And while the adrenaline of the coming coup had them all silent and expectant... the silence also held a newly curious slant.

“Strategically, the Alliance has the upper-hand in this location. I wanted to make sure you knew of my feelings. In case something were to go wrong.”

“Strategically, you’re expecting to die?” Nichol raised his eyebrow, skeptically. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

“Well, I wanted to be gentle about it, but your test results indicate a high likelihood that _you_ won’t survive,” Trant admitted. “I wanted to say this earlier, but it’s not likely that the outcome of battle will change unless you have a fresh reason to overcome it.”

“And I suppose,” Nichol suddenly understood Trant’s twisted logic. “You think _you’re_ going to be my reason for survival?”

“It might make the difference.”

 **8\. Mariemaia + Zechs / The Go! Team ‘Friendship Update’ 4:00**

Une described the girl as an early bloomer, which might have explained the stylish clothing and the breezy, carefree attitude of the young woman who asked to meet the best friend of her father.

Zechs stood slightly as Mariemaia pulled out her chair. He swallowed, not sure what to say or when, but Mariemaia unwittingly saved him from that.

“The coffee here is so good, don’t you think? Or have you been here before?” she asked. The establishment had been recommended to Zechs but he didn’t know she’d been there already. He simply was looking for a safe, sunlit place with a distracting crowd to cover over his uncertainty.

“No, I’ve not been here before,” he answered. He tried to find Treize in her face, but aside from the color of her eyes and the softness of her cheeks... all he could find was a very charming, attractive young woman. _Nineteen,_ he reminded himself. _The same age we were back then._

“I’m not that young,” she said, as if reading his mind although she hadn’t. “I have been to better places than this, but I do like the simple things.” She caught him staring and might have blushed. Or was it the reflection of her hair?

Zechs snatched his water, drinking hastily.

 **9\. Midii + Heero / The Airborne Toxic Event ‘Does This Mean You're Moving On’ 2:14**

At one time, Heero thought he was looking for a reasonable girl. So when Trowa introduced him to Midii Une and her rather plain but somewhat pretty face and her not-too-slim figure and her average levels of conversation--Heero thought he had met that girl. Escaping from the attention of the media meant he had to move past Relena. She said that she understood, but Relena had been unimpressed when Heero mentioned choosing Midii.

“Bring her by so we all can meet her,” Relena had attempted.

“She doesn’t want to,” Heero had admitted. “We’re going to find a place in the colonies. Closer to her relatives.”

“That’s pretty far from your friends,” Relena had been sad, but in the end Heero was on the colony with Midii. It was the worst mistake of his life.

 **10\. Duo + Dorothy / Metric ‘Ending Start’ 3:24**

“What does a guy have to do to get some respect around this place?” Duo shouted to an empty hall. Dorothy leaned in the doorway and watched as he mumbled consolation to himself. She hadn’t seen if anyone had been the target of his raging or if he’d simply used the supposed isolation to vent a lingering frustration.

“I respect you,” she said, delighted by the way he jumped from the ground, spinning around to see her. Knowing she had witnessed the whole thing.

“It all starts with one, you see,” Dorothy continued. She moved to walk around him, tapping his nose with better accuracy than she expected. His eyes crossed in a rather amusing fashion that made him attractive. A target.


End file.
